On Wednesday 06 July 2011 14:42:26 Larry Finger wrote:
This is a request for changing the name of the MS6 release to Beta.
The Testing Core Team (TCT) discussed the general problem of testing of new releases. With openQA, the probability that Factory iso's will boot and install is greatly increased; however, with the current system, many users do not start testing until RC1 is ready. As a result, there is very little time for detecting and fixing the bugs that will only be seen with a workload that is diverse. Such early testing will be particularly important for 12.1. Not only have we regularized the release schedule and naming scheme and need to follow through with a high-quality product, but we are behind due to the early build problems.
The TCT considered several possible changes to entice earlier and broader testing. The schedule does not have much flexibility to increase the time between the RC1 and GM releases, thus we probably need to indulge in some 'social engineering' to get earlier testing. We could change from 6 Milestone and 2 RC releases to 5 and 3, respectively, without tampering with the total time. Alternatively, we could rename from MS6 to Beta. The TCT favors the latter option. It might mislead the users/testers a little regarding the quality of the offering, but we don't think calling MS6 "Beta" is misleading. By most definitions, Beta means feature-complete and free of huge bugs - we should be able to get that with MS6.
A beta release should attract more users. In addition, many of us start full-time usage with MS5 or MS6, thus we know it to be usable for many people. Thanks for considering this proposal to further enhance the user experience and the quality of the final 12.1 release.
This proposal is supported (in no particular order) by Larry Finger, Bernhard M. Wiedemann, Refilwe Seete, Holger Sickenberg, Jürgen Radzuweit, Bruno Friedmann, Ismail Doenmez, and Peter Czanik.
For what it's worth, I think it is a good idea. Moreover, I offer to try and write up something 'better' for the Beta, provided I get some help from this and other lists. The marketeers (incl myself) need more info on what is new/improved/changed! If we have that, we can write a better announcement with more chance to get it out in the press, on lwn.net etc etc. If we only have what for example was mentioned in the last Milestone article, it's not very likely to be picked up by press, that's how it works - they need something to write about :D So if we get some info on what's new and improved, we can introduce the Beta with a bit more of a 'kick', including giving our press a heads-up so we get a good number of articles on news sites and subsequently a bit more testing.